But she went out of the house only once between the death and the funeral. Rob, for his part, roamed round about it, and stayed for hours in the woods, looking for her; but it seemed to Margaret that for the moment she shrank from Rob. Oh, how could she have thought of Rob, or any one, while he lay dying? How could she have gone out and spent those hours in the wood with him, which might have been spent with Sir Ludovic? What would she give now, she said to herself, to be able to steal up-stairs to him, to sit by his bedside, to hold his hand, to hear him say “My little Peggy” again. Now that this was no longer possible, she felt a kind of resentment against Rob, who had occupied her at times when it was still possible. And the state of his mind during this interval was not pleasant to contemplate. When he had asked once or twice for the ladies, he had no further excuse for returning openly, and he was afraid to be seen lest he should again meet some one--perhaps the new Sir Ludovic himself--who had not been delighted by his previous appearance, or some jealous spectator like Randal Burnside. Rob stood for hours behind the big fir-tree looking toward the house in which there were more lights now, but no glimmer in that window which had been his beacon for so long, and more voices audible--never Margaret’s soft notes, like a bird. He was very fond of Margaret. Those dreary evenings when she was kept from him, or kept herself from him, Rob was wild with love, and fear, and disappointment. Could _they_ have found it out? could _they_ be keeping her away? He stood under the fir-tree scarcely daring to move, and watched with his heart beating in his ears. Sometimes John would loom heavily across the vacant space, coming out again, according to his old habit, to “take a look at the potatoes.” Sometimes Bell would appear at the opening of the little court-yard to “cry upon” her husband when something was wanted. “There’s aye something wanting now,” John would say, as he turned back. Or Rob would see some one at the wall, drawing water, under the shade of the thorn-tree, without knowing who it was, or that there were any thoughts of himself, except those which might be in Margaret’s bosom, within the gray shadow of those old walls. How breathlessly he watched John’s lumbering steps about the potatoes, and the whiteness of Bell’s aprons, and the clang of the water-pails!